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Thursday, June 14, 2012

But I Don’t Wanna Get Up, Mom!

Funny. While I sometimes hear imaginary music embedded in the static of my white-noise machine, I never hear birds...

Chip-chip! Chip-chip!

It may be just short of 5:00 a.m., but there’s no foolin’
someone as quick on the draw as I am. There
is a cardinal perched mere yards from my head.

Chip-chip! Chip-chip!

Who do you gotta complain to around here in order to get
a full night’s sleep? I refuse to open
my eyes.

Chip-chip! Chip-chip!

I open my eyes.

No bout a doubt it.
It’s dawn out there.

Not that I hadn’t noticed that before my eyes were
open. Since the handyman came to check
on the air conditioner the day before I moved in, the blinds in the alcove that
serves as my bedroom have remained in the “up” position. Not for lack of grunting, mind you. I’ve grunted, I’ve manipulated, I’ve even
sworn at them, but the blinds remain impervious to my pleas and remain
steadfastly un-blindered.

One of only two windows in the place and it’s next to the
head of my bed. Facing east.

Chip-chip! Chip-chip!

And now the bird.

The world belongs to the early-risers, they say; and having
long admired them, it seems I’m on my way to becoming one.

43 comments:

Many times, after a hard days work, a posse of irate Thrushes, Starlings and Magpies, along with a handful of Seagulls and Pigeons, have demonstrated in front of my house, banners unfurled and posters flapping!

Why?

To demand that I don't get up so early in the morning as it disturbs THEIR sleep!

*sigh* i hate blinds, sugar, for that very reason! if someone pulls them up too tight, you damn near have to take the blasted things down to loosen them! bless his heart, think he even had a clue about the PITA he was causing? xoxoxoxo

from the book "how to lower blinds in one easy lesson", you can see a little metal cylinder net to the pull string. That locks it in place. It is moveable. Move it to the left and pull the pull string to the left, gently, the blinds should lower.

I remember one night in particular, sleeping under a tarp on the Appalachian trail somewhere in Virginia and a damn whip-o-will started making his call at 3 AM. If I could have gotten my hands on that bird, I'd been eating roasted whip-o-will with my oatmeal. Hang in there! Funny post.

When I used to stay with my late mother at her assisted living apartment it was bright like that. An outside light shining through the blinds, etc. I tried one of those sleeping masks, but didn't like it that touched my eyelashes. :)

Hope Ray's "How To..." works. If not, get a screwdriver, jam it in the lock space and wiggle it around. Either the blind will break, or it will unlock. Do it at 5:00am and the commotion should take care of the bird, too.

(There should be a special room in Hell for the guy who invented blinds.)

Wildlife noises don't disturb my sleep. I didn't understand why, until a couple of years ago I went back to Trinidad for a couple of months. There are two different choruses the night: frogs singing so loudly you can hear them making a long-distance call back to England and then the day: birds, including parrots which are not known for their subtlety.

Maybe you should get a CD of frog song to sing you to sleep? That way the cardinal won't bug you in the morning.

Before you go to bed put a few sunflower seeds on your windowsill (outside Pearl outside). I know treats will shut me up so maybe it will work on a cardinal. Or, you could just lay back and enjoy his little good morning song.

When I was in boarding school, one year I lived in a room with six others. We'd be woken shortly after six thirty am by an extra large male rhesus macaque monkey that would sit on the window ledge above the head of my bed and grind his teeth in rage at us every single day.

Now I feel guilty! I slept until 10:00 a.m. this morning! (I don't usually sleep later than 8, but the previous night I had less than 4 hours of sleep, so I had to catch up, I guess.) The beauty of being retired!

I just bought some blackout curtains for my room since I was fed up being awoken at 3am last summer by the light and it's almost light again at that time now! Grrrr. They make a huge difference though. Don't do much for birds though, hmmmm.... :)

I used to never get up early unless it was for a flight somewhere or to get a child up and out to school. I did get up when there was something Important happening. But I never liked it.Now, for some strange reason, I wake up at 9:30 am every day .. I will try to keep this habit, as my husband ( the one that gets up at 7:30 every day) says that All the Good Stuff happens early :)Personally, I think All the Good Stuff happens late at night ;-)

For nine months of our Australian year I love the early mornings, and yes, I do mean pre-dawn. If I don't have to get up for work, I'll lie in bed listening to the birds waking up, or I'll be reading in bed with a cup of coffee beside me, if it's summer I might be out on the front porch enjoying the cool before the sun gets up. From mid-June to about mid-September though, it's just a tad too frosty to feel comfortable out of bed before 8am.

Well at least you have a believable excuse that will last for the three week Minnesota summer when they catch you asleep at your desk. Though I suggest you take a fifth of hootch in and get the intern all tired and noddy so she is asleep at her desk too.